


The Smallest Bones

by wordplay



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordplay/pseuds/wordplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the summer before their junior year in college and Blaine still can't get enough of Kurt. Summer is the growing season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Smallest Bones

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for sillygleekt on LJ, who had all of the AV!verse bound into a paperback and shipped to me - more details are [here](http://wordplayitout.livejournal.com/7384.html). There's a small playlist that accompanies this, featuring a few of my favorite Canadian indie songs, and it can be downloaded [here](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z54GYKT9); the songs included are "My Favourite Chords" from the Weakerthans, "Catching Up" from Great Bloomers, "Robots" from Dan Mangan, and "Luscious Life" from Patrick Watson.

_Hey I found the safest place  
To keep all our tenderness.  
Keep all our bad ideas.  
Keep all our hope.  
It's here in the smallest bones,  
The feet and the inner-ear.  
It's such an enormous thing  
To walk and to listen._

 _"My Favourite Chords" - The Weakerthans_

It's the summer before their junior year in college and Blaine still can't get enough of Kurt. They pass their affection back and forth like a gift, each of them taking a turn to be the most besotted, but for some reason that they don't examine, this is the version they both like most, where he is sick with love for Kurt and Kurt is free to live his life and glory in it. When it's the other way around, when Blaine is busy and distracted and Kurt is the one who gets stuck staring at him across a table, it leaves Blaine feeling guilty and unappreciative, and Kurt feels desperate, clingy. This, this _works_ for them, and it's part of why coming home has its upsides, because it's so easy to fall back into who they were just after he kissed Kurt for the very first time, like each small visit here is a chance to remember why he fell in love with Kurt in the first place, and to celebrate how far they've come.

Blaine's parents have given up trying to tell him where he can and can't be, and Burt seems to have figured out that Blaine's not going _anywhere_ , so he's allowed to stay the night twice a week, only on weekdays so that Burt can mostly pretend it's not really happening. One lazy Tuesday morning in late June Blaine works his way down Kurt's body with his mouth and his hands and then writes his name across the instep of Kurt's foot with a bright red Sharpie, and finishes it with a heart that he inks in while Kurt's toes twitch. "There," he says, blowing across the ink. "Tread softly," and Kurt smiles down at him and Blaine knows he remembers.

It's hazy in his own memory, that night early in their freshman year, the whole stolen weekend in the dorms while Blaine's roommate was home for Rosh Hashanah. Kurt had brought bread and cheese from the fancy grocery store 6 blocks over, and they'd skipped dinner in the dining hall and Blaine had lit candles and turned off all the lights and his roommate's absurd swimsuit model poster had barely been visible and it's ridiculous, of course it is, but it was the first time Blaine had felt like an adult. It was more than that - it was the first time that Blaine had felt like he was in an adult relationship, and that night Blaine fucked Kurt with forever on his mind and his lips, and there were breadcrumbs scattered across Kurt's body like he was the way home. The next day they'd slept in, and when Kurt sliced the last of the bread for toast, Blaine had pressed himself against Kurt's back and whispered the words against Kurt's ear, stolen a bit of Yeats from a high school lit class and then asked Kurt to share an apartment with him next year. His memory of Kurt's answering smile, tossed over his shoulder with the sun from the window lighting up his warm, soft eyes, is one of his favorites, and he remembers the whole 36 hours as a whole but mostly it's that moment that's the center of every new dream.

***

 _Well you gotta come out and visit me  
Has it been a year or has it been three  
When's the last time you left the city  
Do you have a girlfriend is she pretty  
Have you ever told her all about me  
And how well you've done without me  
We used to build fires in our backyards  
And hack through the forest when the mud got hard  
Oh those days  
Oh how we've changed  
Oh do you know  
That every single day I miss you more._

 _"Catching Up" - Great Bloomers_

Blaine sits in the The Lima Bean, reading on his iPad and waiting for Kurt, and when he hears his name in a voice that will always be a little familiar he feels his body tense, and this is really happening.

When he looks up Braden's right there, looking just like he did in his Facebook photo when Blaine got the Friend request just a few weeks ago. His face is thinner, and the glasses are new, and Blaine wonders if he needs them or they're just Braden's newest piece of costuming.

Braden takes the other chair at the small table without being asked, and Blaine closes his iPad and tries to be generous, remembers how Kurt's patience with David Karofsky had paid dividends, and wishes Kurt were already there.

Braden talks about Madison, about how _different_ everything is in college. Blaine watches him while he talks - he looks different but all of it is still there, the way he uses his hands when he gets excited (like the summer they'd all been obsessed with the Power Rangers, back when they were ten), the way his mouth twists when he's making fun of himself (the word "fag", falling from his lips, when they were twelve and Blaine didn't know what that word would do to him one day, not really, but maybe there was a reason that that word had never been something he could use when he was learning how to swear), the way his eyes get wide when he tells a story about getting his ass kicked, _metaphorically_ , he hastens to add, by his classes (and then yes, finally, lying bleeding on the concrete while Braden looks on, horrified and unmoving).

Blaine listens and nods and smiles but he has no _idea_ what to say, no real idea why they're even having this conversation when they haven't really talked in _years_ , not since Braden had stopped sitting with him at lunch and Blaine had started walking home from school by himself.

They're quiet for a few minutes, the wind all gone from Braden's monologue about college, and finally he cuts through the clatter of an afternoon in a coffee shop to say in a small voice, "Look, Blaine. I was a dick, okay? I was a small-town Ohio kid who didn't know shit about _anything_ , really, and I shouldn't have hung you out to dry like that. It was a total asshole move. You don't have to forgive me, and you don't have to Friend me back but... your profile, it says you're in New York, and that you have a boyfriend" - he doesn't even hesitate on the word, Blaine notices - "and, just - the thing about college is that it's like the first time you even notice yourself growing up, you know? This was a weird year for me - my grandmother died just before Thanksgiving - and I just... I thought about you, and I wanted to say I'm sorry. And I thought... I just thought it would be nice if maybe we could be friends again."

Blaine looks at him, watches his hands fiddling with the discarded wrapper from his straw, and says, "I'm sorry about your grandmother. She was always so great. Is your mom okay?" Blaine remembers Braden's mom and her mother fondly - Koolaid and cookies and warm smiles and both of them tousling his hair. His grandmother, in particular, was the first person who'd ever commented on his eyelashes; "such a crime," she'd said, and the first time Kurt had whispered the same words against his cheekbone he'd flashed back to her and wondered what she would think about where he was now.

"Mom's fine, I think - Nana had been sick for a while, and she wasn't really all there before she died. But it's been... I mean, seriously, photo albums _everywhere_ , Blaine, you don't even know. I haven't seen this much of my dad's face since he walked out 15 years ago - she's on a complete nostalgia trip. She asked about you the other day, says she would like to see you."

There's a hand on his shoulder then, and Blaine looks up into Kurt's curious eyes, takes in the tilt of his head and smiles without even thinking about it.

"Hello, sweetheart - sorry I'm late. Starting without me?"

Blaine grins back. "Kurt, this is Braden McCafferty. We grew up together," and it's an easy explanation and completely true.

"Oh. Well, that's nice. First crush?" and Kurt's pushing, testing, because he knows _exactly_ who Braden is and it's just like him to throw a bomb like that out there to see where it lands before he goes any further. One day Kurt's going to hurt himself or somebody else like that, but it does seem to clear the rubble out.

He glances back at Braden, whose eyebrows are up and who is wearing a mischievous grin. "Yeah, do tell, Anderson."

Blaine laughs for the first time all afternoon and says, "You wish, McCafferty. God, Kurt, he was like my _brother_." He lays his hand on top of Kurt's and gives it a squeeze. "Braden, this is my partner, Kurt Hummel." Kurt raises his brow at him and then Braden is standing to shake Kurt's hand and bustle over to the next table to fetch a chair for Kurt.

"'Partner'?" Kurt whispers, and Blaine says under his voice, "You just earned yourself an upgrade," and Braden is back, pushing a chair to the side of their small table and waving Kurt into it.

Kurt sits, crossing his legs and leaning back toward Blaine to angle his body toward Braden. "So. You knew Blaine as a child. Tell me _everything_."

Braden laughs and launches into a story about the summer they called themselves "The Killer Bs" and Blaine groans and interrupts and says, "Okay, you do that. Kurt, can I get you some coffee?"

Kurt turns a little and gives him a wide, sweet grin over his shoulder and says, "That would be lovely, thank you. Take your time - Braden and I have a lot to catch up on." And Blaine can't help it, he just _loves_ him, so he drops a quick kiss to the top of his head and glances up to see Braden watching him with a fond, nostalgic smile of his own.

He watches them from the coffee line, and then again while he's waiting for the barista to finish Kurt's order. They're easy, Kurt is charming and beautiful and Braden is... he's like he was as a kid, laughing and golden in the sunlight from the window.

***

 _Tried to be the robot king  
And settled for a robot boy  
Ring the bells that still can ring  
And sing your stupid head off to  
The ones who are not listening_

 _"Robots" - Dan Mangan_

Two weeks later Blaine goes to the McCafferty house and sits at the kitchen table with Braden's mother and tells her about his life in New York, about school and his music and about Kurt, about their apartment. She looks old, a little broken, and the hum of the refrigerator is different, but the house still smells like whatever they've always used to vacuum the carpet and her voice is the same. It's a strange version of disapproval, the way Mrs. McCafferty smiles sweetly when he talks about Kurt but tries to hide a frown when she finds out they're living together and asks him when he's going to marry his young man. Braden groans out, "Oh, mom, don't start in on Blaine about this. He's never going to come back if you start mothering him, too." Blaine just grins and tells her, _confesses_ , that he's been wondering the same thing himself.

"So you _are_ going to marry him. I mean, however you can," she asks, pressing for clarification, and Blaine smiles to himself because my god, American Catholics are a wonder sometimes.

"Yes, ma'am, I hope so, but even if we could marry in the Church we wouldn't - Kurt is the kindest, most compassionate man I've ever known, but he's not a believer." She frowns. "I'm sorry but, really, can you blame him? The Church has spent forever not believing we existed, either - fair's fair."

She smiles at him sadly and they're quiet until she says. "It's something I've never understood. I couldn't do a thing when you were little, but we all saw it coming - you were the sweetest boy, Blaine, and I _hated_ that that was supposed to be a bad thing. What those kids did to you - Braden was grounded for two months after I found out he was there that night, did he tell you?" Blaine glances over at Braden, who's staring down at the kitchen table, his face grave. "But by then it was done, and I was just Braden's mother and I couldn't say a word. The arguments we had at church, though... I lost some friends there."

He winces. "I wish you hadn't, Mrs. McCafferty. You didn't have to do that."

She pats his hand. "Don't you try to take care of me, Blaine Anderson. I've put calamine and neosporin and countless band-aids on you - that's _my_ job." She smiles at him, so warmly, and god, he's _missed_ her, and he didn't even know it. "You're a good boy, you always have been. And God knows you always took that lesson about turning the other cheek to heart. But you don't always have to be the one who bends, you know. There's space for you in the world, because people make all kinds of mistakes, but God never does. Even Jesus got angry sometimes."

He looks down at the table, grimaces and glances toward Braden, who's gone quiet and very, very still. "I know all about being angry. There was a time, after... but Kurt helps. He just - he went through _so_ much, and he's still just so... I mean, he can be a total brat, don't get me wrong," and he glances up at her and she's grinning at him, "but he's really an incredibly forgiving person. He told me once that all screaming at the world does is make your complexion blotchy and ruin your voice."

She shakes her head and chuckles. "What does he recommend, then?"

"Singing," he says with a grin. "Kurt says the best thing to do is to ignore the haters and keep being fabulous," and on the inside he winces when he says the word because, my god, she's a good person but there's being okay with your son's old friend being gay and then there's having it rubbed in your face, and he's not Kurt, he never has been.

But she just smiles and reaches across the table again to squeeze his hand and says, " _Marry him_ , Blaine."

***

 _One minute of the day  
To celebrate  
To let it be  
To feel so free  
When you and me  
In a sweet luscious life  
For a minute of the day  
You taste so sweet_

 _"Luscious Life" - Patrick Watson_

He tells Kurt what Mrs McCafferty had to say, whispers it into Kurt's room after they've closed the door against everybody else to try to recapture some of the privacy they enjoy in their apartment. It's tricky, this halfway-to-adulthood thing, and if Blaine's parents have given up completely on trying to parent him, at least the Hummels and the McCaffertys seem determined to remind him that they're not there quite yet.

Yet.

"She told me to marry you," he says around a gasp, and oh god, Kurt's hands are moving slow against him, three fingers sliding wet and slick out of his body just to push back in again.

Kurt hums through his nose and continues licking soft and slow over and around the head of his dick.

"She said if I wanted to live with you I should marry you," and he pets his hands through Kurt's hair and has no idea why he's talking, only that Kurt needs to understand, needs to know this is happening.

"I don't know why you care. There's nothing wrong with living together. I can't believe your old Sunday School teacher is getting to you like this," and Kurt sounds grumpy but his mouth is still soft and gentle when he sucks one of Blaine's balls into his mouth to hum around it.

Blaine rolls his hips once, slow, restrained, just to _move_ and to keep himself from thrusting. Kurt's tongue goes broad, licking up his dick until Kurt's mouth is full and his lips are stretched tight.

He leans back against the pillows and watches Kurt, holding his head between his palms and burying his fingertips against Kurt's scalp. "No, baby, no. That's not what she meant." He watches him, and Kurt's eyes are wide and the only thing he doesn't like about Kurt blowing him is that sometimes he wishes he could talk to him through it. Kurt without a voice is a Kurt he's always afraid he could lose. He gasps when Kurt hollows his cheeks and sucks hard, and he's starting to pant a little when he says, "No - oh, oh oh fuck, Kurt - no, what she meant was, I should marry _you_." Just those eyes again, and they narrow at the corners and that could mean so _many_ things, but Blaine's so close, he's so close to coming, so close to _Kurt_ , so close to whatever comes next, so he groans out, "Oh, _fuck_ , I think she's right," and comes down Kurt's throat, pressing his hips up while Kurt takes it all.

***

 _You are a radio.  
You are an open door.  
I am a faulty string of blue christmas lights.  
You swim through frequencies.  
You let that stranger in  
As I'm blinking off and on and off again.  
We've got a lot of time.  
Or maybe we don't,  
but I'd like to think so,  
so let me pretend.  
These are my favourite chords.  
I know you like them too.  
When I get a new guitar,  
you can have this one  
and sing me a lullaby.  
Sing me the alphabet.  
Sing me a story I haven't heard yet._

 _"My Favourite Chords" - The Weakerthans_

Three weeks later Blaine is back at the McCafferty house. It's been getting easier with Braden - he still plays the guitar and he's majoring in drama and he's a little bit the geeky, energetic boy he was when they were kids and a little bit the poseur he was in high school, but he's something new, too. He's grown into a hipster, is what it is, and if the ones in New York just make Blaine nervous and sure he's going to say something wrong, it's different with Braden. He knows when Braden goes back to school he'll be, at least in part, Braden's hip gay New York friend for him to tell stories about, and it bothers him just a little, maybe, but that's not _all_ there is. They talk about the city, sure, but they also talk about what it's like in Madison, about Braden's concern about roles and finding work once he graduates, about what it was like when they were kids and everything was easier until it got a whole hell of a lot harder.

So when Braden texted him and said his mom wanted him to bring Kurt for dinner, he wheedled and cajoled and all of it was unnecessary - Kurt said, "You weren't even this excited about me meeting your parents - of course I'll go to dinner."

Mrs McCafferty is different with Kurt. Maybe it's because Kurt's a few inches taller than she is, like Braden; maybe it's because she never had to mother him; maybe it's because Kurt is just so goddamned charming and flirtatious without being remotely sexually threatening. But Mrs McCafferty, who Blaine has been calling that since he was 8 years old, tells Kurt to call her "Molly", and when Kurt pulls out her chair before dinner and scoffs that boys these days have no manners while slanting a glare at both him and Braden, she giggles and sits with a faint blush.

Braden leans over and says, "No offense, Anderson, but I really don't want your boyfriend for my new dad," and Blaine hides a grin in his lemonade and says, "You're just jealous she likes him better than both of us put together."

Dinner is lively, and after they finish Braden and Blaine go into the living room to screw around on the piano and the guitar while Kurt helps with the dishes. Blaine keeps an ear to the kitchen and overhears fragments of their discussion - fashion, musical theatre, what sounds suspiciously like the plight of a single divorcee in her 50s and Kurt's useless but convincing-sounding advice for the lovelorn, and then their voices get quiet, hushed, and Blaine knows they're talking about him.

Fifteen minutes later they step out of the kitchen and into the small living room, and Kurt's eyes are vibrant with laughter - he heard something in that kitchen that Blaine is going to get later, he knows it. For now, though, Kurt settles into a corner of the sofa while Mrs McCafferty takes her easy chair, a different one than Blaine knew so long ago but still in the same spot by the window.

Blaine spins around on the bench so his body is facing Kurt and he fiddles on the guitar while Braden plunks at the piano - they're each better on the other instrument but that's part of why this is fun.

"Have you _still_ not learned any more chords?" Braden asks, dismay in his voice.

"Sort of? These are still my favorites, though," and he leans toward Braden to bump him with his shoulder without even thinking about what he's doing, and it's casual and intimate and so much of how they would have been at eleven, back when Braden taught him those three chords, and nothing like they have been ever since.

Braden shoves back, though, easy and casual, and says, "Seriously, Blaine. You need to progress, or something."

"Oh god, it's _you_ I have to thank for those? _All the time_ , all over the house. I finally made him teach them to me, just because I couldn't get the sound of them out of my head," Kurt says.

"So that's a kind of progress," Blaine says, winking at Kurt.

"Infecting other people with your sickness is not progress," Braden says, and his mother clucks her tongue at them.

"You think?" he asks, and then shifts from the simple G he's been strumming down through F# to settle in Eminor, and Braden hums from the piano bench and says, "oh, nice" before he fumbles with the keys to try to catch up.

It's a _disaster_ , and Blaine laughs at Braden and bumps his shoulder again, saying, "Can't keep up with my _progression_ , McCafferty?" before he stands and stretches. He looks at Kurt, who gives him a nod of his head, and when he glances at Mrs McCafferty she's just smiling at them, so he goes to Kurt and sits beside him on the sofa, lets Kurt wrap an arm around his shoulders and rests one hand gently on Kurt's knee.

When he looks away from Kurt's face both of the McCaffertys are grinning at them. "You all right there, Anderson?" Braden teases, and the urge to jump up and noogie the hell out of him is apparently one that's never going to die.

They don't stay for much longer, and when they finally break away it's with one last promise to come back for dinner before all three of them head away again. Mrs McCafferty looks sad when Kurt mentions it, and Blaine wraps her in a hug that's warmer and longer-lasting than the one Kurt gave her, and she whispers in his ear, "I like him so much, Blaine. Well done."

They walk back to Blaine's parents' house after that, cutting across the back yards like Blaine and Braden had so many times when they were boys, and they break all the rules they've set for themselves by spending the night there. The summer is almost over and his parents are so _powerless_ now, really - Blaine's taught himself to need so little from them for so long, and now that he has Kurt and the Hummels and maybe even the McCaffertys again (who would ever have thought?) he feels untouchable, safe, and he wants Kurt there with him, wants to fold him into one more piece of his life.

So Blaine fucks Kurt in his bed, swallows his cries and kisses him and whispers to him how he loves him, how _much_ he loves him, forever. Kurt clings to his shoulders and stares at him, his eyes bright even in the dim light from the window. Kurt wraps his legs around Blaine's waist and holds him there, keeps him close even when they're done, kissing him long and slow.

After they clean up Kurt falls asleep almost immediately, tucked against Blaine's shoulder. Blaine lies on his back and stares around at the walls, at the posters and ribbons hung there. He thinks about tomorrow morning, about making toast with Kurt in his parents' kitchen, about what they might have to say and how shockingly little it suddenly matters. He thinks about what Mrs McCafferty might have said to Kurt, and when he's finally going to hear about it. He thinks about going back to their apartment, about getting ready for another year of school. And he thinks about all the stories he doesn't know yet, all the details that only time can fill in, and he hums to himself.


End file.
